New Maryland Assault Weapons Ban introduced

Yesterday, Senator Mike Lennett (D), District 19, Montgomery County, has introduced SB516, the Maryland Assault Weapons Ban of 2010. The following is the response of Maryland Shall Issue, a grassroots 2nd Amendment group, of which I am a member.  I encourage you to join or support their efforts in any way possible.  Their contact info can be found at the end.

Molon Labe!!



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Why should you care?


Even if you do not own an AR15 or anotherf irearm specifically threatened by SB516, the reality is that this is merely the first stage of the process of outlawing the possession of all guns in the state of Maryland. We’ve witnessed this sort of divide and conquer strategy before and we need to continue to show them that Maryland gun owners stick together. Maryland legislators and anti-gun lobbyists have adequately demonstrated that they will not stop until they have done away with all gun ownership here. They have already shutdown the National Capital Trap and Skeet Club for bogus claims of environmental impact and have attacked other ranges for trumped up noise and safety violations. Now they are going to try to divide us as they ban classes of firearms one by one. There are 65-80 million gun owners in the United States, making us one of the largest voting blocks in the country. They know that they can not usurp our rights in an outright, all inclusive ban, so they are seeking to fracture us and destroy us little by little. We must support all firearm rights, regardless of our chosen discipline or they will fall, one by one.
 
What can you do?


Get involved! Remember: The decisions that affect all of us are made by the few that show up!

1. Write letters and make calls to your state senators and delegates and let them know that you oppose all antigun legislation which punishes law abiding citizens who are already purchasing their guns lawfully. You can find your legislator at:
http://mdelect.net/electedofficials

2. Contact the sponsors of SB516 and let them know that you oppose the bill:
http://mlis.state.md.us/2010rs/billfile/SB0516.htm

3. Educate yourself on the ongoing efforts to infringe on your 2nd amendment rights.

4. Sign up for the MSI email alerts at marylandshallissue.org
 
Lie #1: The AWB Won’t Affect “Sporting Guns”

The sponsors of  SB516, The Maryland Assault Weapons Ban of 2010, would lead ou to believe that the firearms covered by the proposed legislation are somehow different than those guns used for sporting
purposes such as hunting and target shooting. This is the favorite technique of the anti-gun members of the General Assembly and the anti-gun professional lobbyists that prop them up. This BIG LIE technique assumes that if they repeat the lie enough times it will start to sound like the truth and will drive a wedge between Maryland gun owners. The old axiom of “we must hang together or we will surely hang separately” has never been more true than right now.  Once they establish that assault weapons are banned in the state, they only need to expand the definition of an assault weapon to add other firearms to the prohibited list.

Lie #2: AR15s have no sporting purpose

That’s what they would like you to believe. The AR15 is the #1 firearm used for rifle target competitions ranging from local NRA matches to the world class Civilian Marksmanship Program matches held at Camp
Perry. The .223 Remington cartridge fired by the AR15 is permissible in some areas to be used on game as large as deer.

Lie #3: Assault weapons are machine guns:

Another example of the BIG LIE technique. The firearms covered by SB516 are semiautomatic firearms, not machine guns. They fire one cartridge for every pull of the trigger just like all non-machine guns such as sporting arms. Machine guns are regulated heavily by legislation in existence since 1934 and 1986 and are not affected by this bill.

Lie #4: SB516 only affects AR15s  and other “Evil Black Rifles”

The text of part of SB516 now says assault weapon...not rifle....and defines an assault weapon as, “the ability to accept a detachable magazine” and any of a number of cosmetic features that have nothing to do with the function or power of the firearm. Attorney General Gansler, a Ceasefire MD advisory board member, will take the strictest interpretation of the law to limit your access to many firearms in addition to the AR15.

Facts 1 and 2: “1 in 5” and “Blood in the Streets”

Despite the cries of “1 in 5” police officers killed with assault weapons and “blood in the streets” since the lapse of the 1994 Federal AWB, neither of these occurred. The FACT is that not one Maryland police officer was shot and killed by a rifle of any kind in the period 1980-2009. The other FACT is that in the year 2000 rifles accounted for only 3% of homicides in Maryland. The number of “assault weapons” in that 3% is even smaller.

Fact #3: The FBI does not trackthe use of assault weapons in crimes.

Supporters of the AWB will affirm that the FBI tracks the use of assault weapons in the Uniform Crime Report. The simple FACT is that they do not. The LIARS simply decide that any .223 Remington cartridge recovered from a crime scene must be from an AR15. Would recovering a .30’06 cartridge automatically
mean that it was from an M1 Garand?

Fact #4: The Maryland State Police has said that the AWB is a non-issue for them.

The Maryland State Police has previously testified that the possession of the sort of firearms named in this bill are not an issue that concerns their officers.

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contact:

Maryland Shall Issue.org
P.O. Box 314
Libertytown, MD 21762-0314
ph. 240-446-6782

http://www.marylandshallissue.org/
Mission Statement

"Maryland Shall Issue is an all volunteer, non-partisan effort dedicated to the preservation and advancement of all gunowners' rights in Maryland, with a primary goal of CCW reform to allow all law-abiding citizens the right to carry a concealed weapon; and to the education of the community to the awareness that 'shall issue' laws have, in all cases, resulted in decreased rates of violent crime."